Twenty-six real things from a working studio, one for each letter. Tap any of them and it makes the sound it is named after. It says one word, and then it stops and waits, because the waiting is where her turn goes.
At twelve months the page is not the relationship; you are. She learns a person by hearing their name attached to something good, over and over, from someone she trusts. So say the name out loud when you tap. “That one is a kick drum. Uncle Raul made that noise.” Twenty-six times a sitting, and a stranger becomes familiar before they ever walk through the door.
Every tap makes a sound and a shape. That is contingency, and at this age it is the most valuable thing on any screen: she did a thing, and the world answered.
Not simplified. A one-year-old learns dubplate as easily as dog; the syllables are the same work. She will not know what it means for years, and that is fine.
No strobing, no sudden brightness, no loud onsets. Sounds are short, soft-edged and capped below full scale. Set the volume where you would set a music box.
Letters she has tapped fill in and stay filled in on this device, so you can see across a week which ones she keeps going back to. Nothing is sent anywhere.
It works with nothing connected at all: on a plane, in a lift, forever. Print it and the browser lays it out four across as a book.
Children build language out of turns, and out of rhythm. The back-and-forth between you and her, rather than the sheer number of words she hears, is what tracks with how her language network develops; and rhythmic play in infancy shows up later in how she processes speech, because both run on the same machinery for predicting what comes next in time. That is the whole design: the page makes a sound when she causes it, says one word, and then stops.
Turn Voice on and pick how much it says. It is pitched high and slowed down on purpose. That register, with real words, is the one that moved vocabulary in the coaching trials. It sounds faintly ridiculous to an adult. It is not for the adult.
Every claim above is cited, linked and caveated on the evidence page, including the sample sizes and what each study does not show.
The WHO advises no screen time under one and very little under five. We agree. This is meant to be used with an adult in the room, for a few minutes. The printed book is the real product.
Nothing here diagnoses or treats anything. If you have any concern about her hearing or her speech, see a paediatrician or a speech-language pathologist now rather than later.
No account, no tracking, no advertising, nothing to unsubscribe from. If you use this and buy nothing, the job is done.
The same twenty-six, printed. A 32-page board book, 178 mm square, matt, rounded corners, on 1.5 mm board so it survives being chewed. Paper produces more back-and-forth talk than a device does, which is why the book is the product and this page is the sample.
See the book →